I am a Burmese exile taking a near-permanent refuge in New York and Sydney. Here are my essays about Burma and anything else I feel like writing about. And posting the articles I like from selected sites. Bridging Burma to the world this Blog is more of a Politically-Oriented Literary Blog than a Plain News Blog or a Sophisticated Thoughts Blog.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Army Removed Burma Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann

Myanmar's powerful ruling party chief
Thura U Shwe Mann has been ousted from his post, according to party members,
after losing a power struggle with president Thein Sein three months before a
general election.

Security forces surrounded the headquarters of the ruling Union
Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in the capital, Naypyitaw, late on
Wednesday and prevented members there from leaving. Family members said Mr Shwe
Mann was also detained by the army at his home in Naypyidaw when the soldiers
took control of the USDP compound, where party members were hosting a meeting
without him.

Mr Shwe Mann's ousting from the party
follows rare discord within the establishment over the role of the military,
which handed power to a semi-civilian government in 2011 but retains an
effective veto over the political system.

"Shwe Mann isn't the chairman of
the party anymore," said a USDP member of parliament."He's in good
health and at home now." Mr Shwe Mann still holds the position of speaker
of parliament, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the
sensitivity of the subject, but has been replaced as party

Meanwhile, secretary general Maung
Maung Thein, a supporter of Mr Shwe Mann, was also ousted from his post in a
phone call he took from home. He is to be replaced by one of the president's
closest aides Tin Naing Thein, a senior party official said.

Tension rose between the president and
Mr Shwe Mann, both former top military officers, over the selection of
candidates for the November election, party sources said earlier. The two are
old rivals and both have suggested they would accept the job of president after
the November 8 parliamentary election.

USDP leaders announcing the resignations of Shwe Mann and his gang from their USDP posts.

Security forces surround headquarters for private meeting

Late on Wednesday, several trucks of
soldiers and police officers arrived at the ruling party's headquarters. After
the security forces took control of the compound, Soe Tha, one of the founders
of the USDP, and Htay Oo led a late-night meeting of senior party officials
that lasted into the early hours of Thursday, party members said. Both men are
close to the president.

Mr Shwe Mann and high-ranking party
members considered to belong to his faction in the USDP were not present at the
meeting, the sources said. The security forces left after the meeting concluded
at around 2:30am, sources said.

"What I heard ... was that there
was a lot of reorganisation in the party last night," said government
spokesman Ye Htut, who said he could not give further details as he is not a
member of the party.

Mr Shwe Mann was a presidential hopeful
when the military handed over power to a semi-civilian government after 49
years of rule in 2011. Despite the establishment of the new government, the
military has resisted recent efforts to introduce constitutional amendments to
loosen its grip.

The USDP is comprised largely of former
military officers and was created from a social movement set up by the former
junta. The constitution reserves 25 per cent of seats in parliament for
unelected military officers.

Changes to the constitution require the
support of at least 75 per cent of lawmakers, giving the military an effective
veto over changes. An amendment that would have seen the threshold of support
lowered to 70 per cent failed, as expected, to gain enough support with
lawmakers in a June vote.

Shwe Mann is believed to be in the deep pockets of George Soros.

Turmoil in Burma's military-backed ruling party USDP

Burmese security forces have surrounded
the headquarters of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development party in the
country’s capital, Naypyidaw, and senior regime figures have been removed from
their posts, as tensions mount ahead of elections in November.

Sources within the headquarters of the USDP – which is effectively a
political extension of the military – said on Thursday that Shwe Mann, party
chairman and Speaker of the parliament, had been deposed and was under police
guard. His closeness to opposition leader and democracy figurehead Aung San Suu
Kyi is believed to have soured his relationship with military leaders in Burma,
also known as Myanmar.

“Police entered the party compound last
night. Since then no one was allowed in or out,” Toe Naing Mann, Shwe Mann’s
son, told Agence France-Presse on Thursday morning. “So-called guards” were
also outside his father’s residence in the capital, he said.

Several trucks of soldiers and police
officers arrived at the compound at around 10pm on Wednesday, sources said. “We
have not been allowed to move around since late yesterday,” said one party
member. The USDP general secretary, Maung Maung Thein, has also reportedly been
forced from his post. “They called me and told me I don’t need to come to the
office anymore,” he told Reuters.

The moves comes amid a tussle for
control of the USDP. Tension has reportedly risen between leaders of the
military-backed government over the selection of candidates to run in the 8
November general elections.

The elections – which had been touted
as potentially the most free in decades – are set to be contested by Aung San
Suu Kyi, who was a thorn in the side of the previous junta regime with her
years of campaigns for democracy.

Recent months have seen growing talk of
animosity between Shwe Mann and President Thein Sein, both former generals who
shed their uniforms to take part in controversial 2010 polls that heralded a
new quasi-civilian government, which has ushered in sweeping reforms.

Tensions began to heighten earlier this
week when the USDP, now choosing its candidates for the election, overlooked
some senior military officials during a party convention. A group of 149 army
officers had resigned their posts on Wednesday hoping to take part in the election
but only 59 were approved as candidates.The leading local political commentator Yan Myo Thein called Shwe Mann’s
removal a “purge” and warned that the party’s internal strife had the potential
to disrupt progress towards democracy. “I think primarily that is the ruling
party’s internal affair, but the internal struggle of the ruling party can
threaten the democratisation process of [Burma],” he said.

“Because of the power struggle and incidents inside the ruling party,
the upcoming general election can be postponed. If the election is postponed
the process of democratisation in Myanmar will be delayed. “People are
expecting to have a new government made up of the majority opposition [the
National League for Democracy] and the ethnic minority parties.”

Yan Myo Thein said it was so far
unclear whether the purge was initiated by serving military officials. “Most of
the leaders are retired military generals so that they may have direct or
indirect relations with the serving military generals,” he said. “But I’m not
sure of the role of the military in the recent purge.”

The move comes after years of rumours
of a split in the ruling party between Thein Sein and Shwe Mann – the latter
seen as being close to Aung San Suu Kyi. A recent petition backed by military
officials sought to impeach Shwe Mann for his role in proposing amendments to
the military-drafted constitution, which were anyway rejected.

U Nyan Win, a spokesman for Aung San
Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, said the party was not
involved in events in Naypyidaw and declined to speculate on the reasons behind
it. He noted, however, the deadline for
political parties to decide their candidate lists for election. “The last day
is tomorrow [Friday] but we don’t know what is happening with them,” he said.
“We are just finalising our own list now.”

The USDP has been the vehicle for the
former junta elites to metamorphose from soldiers to MPs. But there is internal
tension over the speed of democratic reforms and the loosening of the
military’s grip on power, which it has held for more than half a century.

Army Thinks Shwe Mann Is Too Close To ASSK

Shwe Mann & ASSK at a joint press conference.

Shwe Mann has welcomed the idea of
working closely with Aung San Suu Kyi and has set himself up in opposition to
the still powerful army on key issues – including on the constitutional reform
debates that have centred on reducing the military’s political power.

The Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi –
the daughter of Burma’s independence hero General Aung San, and the country’s
democratic icon for a generation – led her party, the National League for
Democracy, to victory in Burma’s election in 1990, but the party was never
allowed to take power.

Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 of the next
21 years under house arrest. She was banned from standing in Burma’s first
elections in a generation, held in 2010, and the NLD boycotted the poll.

She was still under house arrest at the
time of the election – until released a week later – and has since been elected
to parliament in a byelection. Her participation in this year’s election is
being seen, both inside Burma and out, as a major step forward in the country’s
democratic reforms. She has vowed that if her party, the NLD, wins it will
amend the constitution to weaken the military’s hold on parliament. But
military figures are expected to remain significant political players.